Heading Toward Home.

We are on our way home! Its now 11:30AM and we are traveling north on I-65. We are soon going to pass near Birmingham AL. Sometime in the early to mid afternoon we plan to dine at a Cracker Barrel. The weather is sunny and traffic is moving right along. We are not yet sure if we will use Maynard's place as a motel on the way through. I figured if we got near their place by 9:00PM or earlier we might just keep on going home but if its after 10:00 we might just stay overnight at their place. Many thanks to Jon and Dawn for a very memorable Christmas away from home. The visit will certainly be remembered and your hospitality was wonderful. It was sad to have to say good bye. More updates to follow...

In case you are curious how I am able to update while traveling, I will copy the chat I had with a friend below...

Hey there Beka....

We are about midway through Alabama on I 65
I have your Verizon wireless broadband card in the other laptop and shared it out to my 2nd laptop through a network switch that I brought along.
This allows more than 1 laptop to be online at the same time.
Conrad is on the other one playing Rook online with other real people.
The website for internet multi-player rook is here> DuelBoard

Beka(10:28:20 AM): That's pretty cool. I'm glad it's working for you. Is it fast enough for you?

Rm65 (10:30:00 AM): Well, I have not found it to be much faster than dial-up but its certainly better than nothing and the portability of it is still worth a lot.

Beka (10:30:34 AM): That's what I like about it.

Rm65 (10:31:23 AM): I really appreciate the use of it on this trip. Being online sure helps the miles to go by faster...

Beka (10:31:35 AM): Enjoy it!

Christmas Day.

Christmas day has been very enjoyable. After a light breakfast we had a time of singing Christmas carols and read the Christmas story from Luke 2. Then it was soon time to begin preparations for lunch. A few friends from church were expected to join us. The meal consisted of deep fried turkey, baked sweet potatoes, collard greens, sliced ham, mixed vegetables, cranberry salad, pie, ice cream, and cake. After the meal there was more time for games, puzzles, and some playing guitar and singing.

Injecting seasoning and preparing the turkey.


Cooking underway...


Partaking of lunch...






Jesse found a new friend...


Another rook game...

A New Couple!

I know this is a quick post right after the last one but I just couldn't resist!
Here is the happy new couple. Click to enlarge the picture...

Katrina and Deaniel...

Christmas Away Part 2.

Sunday afternoon...
We managed to arrive at Jon and Dawn's arround 1:00am Friday night after leaving Maynard's at around 8:30 that morning. We certainly didn't break any records getting there. Frequent stops and a few wrong turns were part of the journey. The big holdup was a tractor trailer wreck on I-65 in AL. I think it even caught fire. No wonder it stopped traffic for about an hour!
The following day was simply gorgeous. Bright sunshine with temps near 70. We spent some of the day working on a big pile of trees that were destroyed during the hurricanes that took place around here the past few years. A big fire was started to burn up most of them.
We really enjoyed church this morning with the service being about Christmas. We enjoyed the message that spoke of Joseph cooperating with the plan of God that brought Jesus into the world. The challenge was given that we need to allow God to invade our lives to bring about His purpose. Sometimes our plans/goals can get in the way of what God wants to do in our lives. Joseph surely had ideas/plans that got interrupted or at least put on hold.

Here are a few highlights.....

Plenty of games to play...




Even a rook game broke out...


The traditional jigsaw puzzle was under way...


And of course plenty of great southern food! This was called "southwest soup".


The bonfire...




A beautiful sunset...

Christmas Away From Home Part 1.

This is the first official entry of our Christmas away from home. We arrived late Tues night 1:30AM (Wed morn) at Maynard's. We have had a relaxing and enjoyable time thus far. We plan to leave tomorrow morn for Atmore, AL. Hopefully we can get going at least by 8:00AM. It will be a 12-13 hr trip.
Below are some highlights from here at Maynard's.

Dinner is under way...


I bet grandpa and grandma back in DE would have loved this...




Brianna with grandpa...


Aint she a sweety!


Kristan lost a bottom front tooth tonight...


Brendon and Karl.


Maynard's have DSL and wireless router. Huraay!


One of their dogs recently had pups...

Christmas

Nothing puts me in the mood for Christmas quite like good Christmas music! I am making use of "AOL Radio". They have a beautiful station on it called "XM Classical Christmas". Yes, XM Radio is part of AOL's service and AOL is free if you have broadband or another dial-up service. You will find quite an assortment of artists on there. A couple you might recognize is "The Kings Singers" and "Choir of Kings College". For those of you still on dial-up it might still work but not sure. I guess you could try it and see.